June 8, 2024

Today, June 8th would have been BEDEMON founder Randy Palmer’s 71st birthday. He will always be missed. This photo is of him with his gorgeous girlfriend-later-to-be-his-finacée, Taryn. It was taken by Geof at Randy’s house in Feb. 1976, right in the middle of the ’73 through ’79 period where he wrote the Child of Darkness songs.

She and her son were with him in the tragic 2002 car crash which would take his life a week later. Just three months earlier, Randy and Taryn (as well as bassist Mike Matthews) had traveled out to California to record the backing tracks in Geof’s garage for Bedemon’s Symphony of Shadows, which would finally see release in 2012.

Happy birthday to the Child of Darkness.

{ 3 comments }

Such a pretty boy: Randy in the mid-70s.
(photo © Geof O’Keefe)

Hard to believe today marks seventeen years since the passing of Randy Palmer. To this day I still get messages about BEDEMON and have met some interesting people. The most common questions are, “When will there be a new album?” and “Are you going to play any more shows?”. As to the first question, the answer is always the same: we really want to, we have material and the members but the difficulties are that no one lives near one another, everyone has family and work responsibilities (and other musical commitments in some cases) and there’s the issue of cost for studio time. I am determined it will happen; I’m determined not to say when because I really don’t know.

The gig thing is pretty much the same situation, with the added issue of promoters not wanting to book a band that has no new album to promote. I know there are fans that would definitely come out to see us at least in club-size settings or at a metal fest like the Psycho California gig we played in 2015. From my perspective, a new album has to come first.

Randy is missed every day; he would be blown away that fans play and love his music in 2019 and write me questions such as if there are any more red vinyl LPs left (there aren’t). BUT … check back here within the next day or two for an announcement of — and a link to — a very special non-musical item Randy’s fiancée Taryn will be auctioning on ebay.

Randy here in California in May 2002, sitting in my living room as we learned the songs that would eventually become Symphony of Shadows.
(photo © Geof O’Keefe)

{ 3 comments }

Fifteen Years

August 8, 2017

l to r: Randy, Geof and Mike during the 2002 sessions
photo by Taryn Dodd, with artistic background embellishments by Mike Matthews.

2017 marks fifteen years since Randy Palmer and Mike Matthews traveled across the country to gather here in my garage in San Miguel, CA and spend five days recording the instrumental backing tracks and most of the guitar solos for the first “real” album by BEDEMON.

Randy Palmer

Randy in 2002
photo by Geof O’Keefe

Three months after completing that part of the process, Randy died on August 8th, 2002 from injuries suffered a week earlier in a car crash, an innocent victim of a car full of teenagers running a red light and broadsiding the vehicle in which he was a passenger.

It took ten years of emotional recovery, money and fitting it into everyone’s schedule, but with the addition of Craig Junghandel on vocals — who never met or even spoke to Randy — and engineer Shawn Hafley, Symphony of Shadows was finally released in 2012 to pretty much unanimously positive reviews, calling it a, “great lost 70s album.” That was exactly what I was going for when I produced the album and Shawn patiently dealt with my constant fine-tuning to get it just right.

Randy was my best friend for thirty-one years. I think about him every day.

{ 49 comments }

Randy Palmer

(photo © Geof O’Keefe)

Geof reflects: It’s hard to fathom that it was fourteen years ago today – August 8, 2002 – that our beloved Randy Palmer passed away after a week in the hospital, following the auto accident he was involved in on July 31st, 2002. He didn’t live to see the Child of Darkness album released. He didn’t live to see the Symphony of Shadows album we’d just begun recording a few months prior, finally finished and released in 2012. And he didn’t live to participate in the first (and to date only) BEDEMON live performance at Psycho California, May 15, 2015.

To this day, we still meet people and get messages from fans who tell us how much they love BEDEMON. Randy may no longer be with us in the literal physical sense but his music will live on forever. To our brother of doom, you are loved and missed by more people worldwide than you ever could have imagined.

{ 5 comments }

pentagram_header_trans

After their excellent 2015 reissue of the BEDEMON Child of Darkness CD and LP – including limited colored vinyl editions, some still available through their site – Relapse Records is set to reissue both First Daze Here and First Daze Here Too by DC’s own hard rock and doom legends PENTAGRAM on June 17th. Out-of-print for some time now, both have been remastered and had a number of updates and changes including revised and updated artwork and liner notes.

PENTAGRAM co-founder Geof O’Keefe provides the details: “On First Daze Here, there are some notable music changes. “Foreven My Queen” now has the proper cold ending, rather than that abrupt fade-out. The pitch of “Starlady” was a tad off and that’s been corrected.

When First Daze Here originally came out in 2002, the CD had updated versions of the songs, “Be Forewarned” and “Lazy Lady,” which were PENTAGRAM’s first recordings when we’d briefly changed our name to MACABRE. Bobby had added some additional vocals and guitars to both. For reasons no one can now recall, the LP version of First Daze Here only had “Lazy Lady” but was missing “Be Forewarned.” Since the master tape of the final produced 45 versions of those two songs couldn’t be located, I used an unmixed multi-track and tried to replicate the sound of the single, and these “replication mixes,” as I call them, were only available exclusively on a bonus 7″ single that accompanied the original LP version of First Daze Here. Those two “replication mixes” are now included in the main album’s song lineup on both the CD and the LP , replacing the updated versions.

The big news is that a few years back, I was able to finally locate and purchase the master tape of the final produced mix of the 45 “Be Forewarned” and “Lazy Lady,” and these two tracks now make their first-ever appearance with these reissues. On the CD, they are included as part of the regular release on all copies as a bonus CD single. However, fans wanting these two songs on vinyl will have to get them through the Relapse website store, as they are included only as a very limited bonus 45 with certain colored vinyl editions of First Daze Here.

The twelve-page booklet has also been greatly expanded to twenty-eight pages, and includes a more detailed history, updates on PENTAGRAM (and BEDEMON) events that have taken place in the fourteen years since the original release and new track-by-track commentary.

First Daze Here Too doesn’t have any song changes, although it’s been remastered, but the liner notes have been revised and updated. However, the coolest thing is that I lobbied Relapse to revise the front cover to use the original uncropped photo which included Randy Palmer walking next to Bobby but he was removed from the original cover to focus more on the “core four” of the 70s lineup, and they agreed (see new cover image). This five-member lineup photo with Randy is also featured on a brand-new t-shirt! Check out the Relapse store for details.”

Relapse Pentagram Reissues

{ 2 comments }